WITH A MIND TO KILL

In The Man with the Golden Gun, the last James Bond novel written by Ian Fleming, Bond returns to London after he’s fallen into the hands of the KGB and been brainwashed by them. He’s been programmed to kill M, but the attempt fails. He’s deprogrammed and sent to Jamaica to kill Scaramanga, the assassin who uses a golden Colt .45 to kill his victims.

With a Mind to Kill starts two weeks after that mission with the funeral of M after Bond killed him with a cyanide pistol. But M is actually alive and well. His “death” is just part of an elaborate ruse to fool the Russians into believing that Bond indeed succeeded in killing the head of MI6. Bond has a new mission, to infiltrate a group of former Smersh agents who want to use the British spy in an operation that will change the balance of world power. He has to uncover this plot. It’s extremely dangerous, for Bond has to go back into Russia and convince the people who brainwashed him that he’s still under their spell.

With a Mind to Kill is a vintage spy thriller set in the Cold War era of which Horowitz paints a wholly believable picture. The last part of the novel is utterly suspenseful.